Posted on May 20, 2020

Wikipedia Founder Says the Project Has Abandoned Neutrality Policy, Is ‘Badly Biased’

District Herald, May 19, 2020

Larry Sanger, the founder of Wikipedia, says that the project has abandoned neutrality and is now “badly biased.”

Sanger is no longer involved with Wikipedia, and his co-founder, Jimmy Wales, is a far-left activist.

In a blog post on Thursday, Sanger wrote a scathing critique of the bias at his former website.

“Wikipedia’s ‘NPOV’ is dead,” Sanger began, referring to the site’s neutral point of view policy.

He specifically pointed to the entries for former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump as examples.

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The founder points out that the entry for President Trump, on the other hand, is “unrelentingly negative.”

“Meanwhile, as you can imagine, the idea that the Donald Trump article is neutral is a joke. Just for example, there are 5,224 none-too-flattering words in the ‘Presidency’ section. By contrast, the following ‘Public Profile’ (which the Obama article entirely lacks), ‘Investigations,’ and ‘Impeachment’ sections are unrelentingly negative, and together add up to some 4,545 words—in other words, the controversy sections are almost as long as the sections about his presidency,” Sanger explains. “Common words in the article are ‘false’ and ‘falsely’ (46 instances): Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump’s statements are ‘false.’ Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without attribution. You might approve of Wikipedia describing Trump’s incorrect statements as ‘false,’ very well; but then you must admit that you no longer support a policy of neutrality on Wikipedia.”

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Likewise, scientific articles, he explained, are filled with liberal bias and “unscientific views.” He wrote that “when the Establishment (or maybe just the Establishment left) is unified on a certain view of a scientific controversy, then that is the view that is taken for granted, and often aggressively asserted, by Wikipedia.”

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